Cockroaches that can be used as spies

Electronic Telegraph ^ | 26/09/2001 | Robert Uhlig, Technology Correspondent

[aculeus]

SCIENTISTS are developing a remote-controlled cockroach that can carry a tiny camera and microphone for spying missions or be used for searching under rubble for disaster victims.

With a microchip surgically implanted in its back and electrodes connected to its brain, scientists can make the cockroach turn left, right, crawl forward or leap backwards.

Isao Shimoyama, of Tokyo University, said that cockroaches were chosen because they were exceptionally hardy and were resistant to poisons and radiation.

He said: "Insects can do many things that people cannot. The potential applications of electronically controlled cockroaches for mankind could be immense."

The team, financed by a £7 million grant from the Japanese government, has bred an army of Perplaneta Americana, the American cockroach, which is the only species large enough and strong enough to carry 20 times its own weight.

The cockroaches' wings and antennae are removed when it is anaesthetised to make room for the electronic back-pack, which, at just over one-tenth of an ounce, is twice as heavy as the insect.

[aculeus]

What happened to Agent 72?

Sorry, Chief. I stepped on him.

[dighton]

Theirs will be a fearful doom.

[Diogenesis]

This was done in the Fifth Element.

[goodieD]

Isn't that why Jesse Jackson is heading for Afghanistan?

[Irma]

There's something about this cockroach story that bugs me.

[aculeus]

archy and mehabital (sp?) of the long gone New York Sun.

He never could handle the shift key.

[cajungirl]

I knew we would have strange bedfellows in this war but this is, well, just too much.

[drstevej]

They won't need a disguise to hang around bin-Laden's bunch.

OK, maybe tiny beards.

[John Farson]

Tech_Index

[TheLion]

What was the movie that had all the mechanical spiders with a deadly needle to inject into their victims? Too bad we don't have thousands of those to release in Afghanistan with a search warrant for Bin Laden's crew. Or how about thousands of bird sized kamakazee thingies that go after their victims. Can you imagine the look on the faces over there!

[dighton]

mehitabel & shirley maclaine lower-case bump

[aruanan]

Cockroaches that can be used as spies

How did they get Hillary to agree to it?

[SamAdams76]

We can call it Operation Kafka.

[Plutarch]

I'm just glad that no one has posted a photograph.

[Romulus]

Palmetto bugs are your friend.

[Diogenesis]

Photo here:

[TheGoodDoc]

"a remote-controlled cockroach that can carry a tiny camera and microphone"

Sorry little buddy, we have had them for years already.

They are called Dan Rather, Peter Jennings, Brian Gumbal, and the rest of the DNC propagandist cockroaches, oops I meant network news reporters, sitting in front of their tiny cameras and microphones.

[muleskinner]

A mechanical dragon fly was used in the first Lexx episode - "I Worship His Shadow".

[headsonpikes]

ROTFLMAO!!!